Yes Carlos, an external mic detached from the camera will eliminate the motor noise. An external mic attached to the camera needs to be in a rubber isolation mount of some type to eliminate the mechanical coupling of motor noise and camera handling.

In my experience, the only recorded noise from the camera is from the auto focus. I find that an external mike, velcroed to the top, eliminates the problem. If you can live without auto focus (and there is lots of depth of focus at the wider end of the lens) that is a simpler solution.

It looks like it should be good, I got the soundpro and have been happy with that one. I emailed the guy with the ebay one asking about getting one with a smaller mini-jack (cellphone size) so it would plug straight into the HD1, but never heard back.

Using the SoundPro I have not experienced anymore sound from the focusing system.

Actually, I don't particularly think that the inclusion of the mic jack on the HD1 is a "telling sing" - as this is a highly dseired feature by every camcorder user, my thought would be that Sanyo tried to add more features to their camera rather than compensate for the focusing motors noise. (smile) this is noise which can be found on many cameras, and many even add a weak sound from the tapedrive.